Womanly variations

I do not know on other places, but in Cuba, since several years ago, we have been noticing an increasing feminine influence in the structures ruling the universe of visual arts. (…)

successive and persistent graduations of young female specialists have packed the institutional spaces of visual arts. Is important to notice that most of the students registered in the Faculty of Arts and Letters have always been feminine. Of course, excellent male art critics and promoters have emerged, not all the time or with the same relevance; but it has been mainly girls, however, who have taken care of organization, curatorial projects, production, coordination, reviews and so on. They have been conquering the place (and their place), learning and assimilating the structures and have ended up modifying them, approaching them to their view, and even directing them. Previous generations opened the way to these girls and today it is really difficult to find a gallery or a publication devoted to visual arts which is not led by a woman, or an executive structure which is not feminine in a high percentage.

(…) Likewise, most women specialists who have migrated, as I have heard, have not been losing their time either. Just as their fellow-countrywomen, they have occupied some more or less significant spaces, at times very significant, and, with even more accelerated dynamics, they look after artists who live abroad temporarily or permanently, or focus their efforts on galleries, events and cultural centers, or cover columns with articles I at times read, and so on. Abiding by the principle of not mentioning names, since there would always be some essential ones left behind, I know about the work and research of many who have settled in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Belgium, Mexico DF, San Jose de Costa Rica, Miami, Los Angeles and New York. They are still promoting Cuban art with their work, introducing new figures, rescuing others from oblivion. And they have learned, as I have seen, to leave aside part of the elation for the last graduation of the Higher School of Art.

(…) I would personally leave many matters in women’s hands. Important matters I mean. To see if they function as well—as much as can be expected—as they do in our world of art.